Saturday, 9 October 2010

I have been a fan of Bakerella's blog for awhile. Her cake pops look amazing and she is always coming up with new decoration ideas. I'm not so good at the decoration side of things but I still wanted to try making these just for the taste and the novelty of them. I don't normally like to cook with cake mix or canned frosting, but I thought it was worth a try and I didn't have enough time to make everything from scratch. They were GOOD and everyone seemed pretty intrigued by them! I highly recommend them!

Sunday, 3 October 2010

This is a favourite recipe of mine. And now that it's October, I felt like it was time to have this again. It is a really great apple loaf cake recipe. Perfectly spiced, not overly sweet, with chunks of apple that are perfectly tender. The glaze is also amazing and worth making (it's also very easy to make!) It adds some richness to what is quite a light loaf cake.

To make the bread: Preheat oven to 350*F. Arrange pecans in a single layer on baking tray and bake 10min until golden and aromatic. Cool the nuts and then coarsely chop.

Grease and flour five 6x4x2-inch mini loaf pans. Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the oil mixture until incorporated. Stir in the apples and pecans. The batter will be stiff and difficult to stir.

Spoon the batter into the loaf pans, filling each about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 50min to 1 hr until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaves in the pans for 10min and then turn them out onto baking racks.

To make the glaze: Melt the butter, brwon sugar, syrup and Calvados in a saucepan set on medium-high heat for about 2 min until slightly thickened. Spoon the warm glaze over the loaves.

Do not wrap them until they are thoroughly cooled and the glaze has set, about 1 hr. Wrapped bread will keep up to 4 days at room temperature.